


The Guy in No. 4

by richmahogany



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s01e04 Cura Te Ipsum, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 13:45:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4962889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richmahogany/pseuds/richmahogany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr Tillman finds a brief moment of respite on a stressful day when she treats an unusually polite patient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Guy in No. 4

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Outside Looking In](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4476560) by [PapayaK](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PapayaK/pseuds/PapayaK). 



> I think it was PapayaK's "Outside Looking In" that gave me the idea for this, but I didn't mean to imitate it - it's just that the story popped half-formed into my head, so I sat down and wrote it. Basically this is the first scene from the episode with the dialogue largely taken from it and Dr Tillman's point of view filled in.

Megan Tillman had become a doctor because she wanted to help people. She wanted to save lives, alleviate suffering, make a difference. And there was no better place to make a difference than the emergency room of a big hospital. Normally she thrived on the action and the adrenaline. She had a high tolerance for stress and she knew she was doing a good job. There were days however, when all the unpleasant sides of her work conspired to make her doubt her vocation. Today was one of those days. She hadn’t had enough sleep to start with, but that was par for the course. But with paramedics crashing through the door every so often with yet another victim of a road traffic accident or a knife attack, this was shaping up to be one of the worst days she had experienced in a while. And on top of that there were the other patients to deal with. They vented their anger at having been kept waiting at her. They came in with trivial complaints, which they insisted on describing to her in great detail. They tried to persuade her to prescribe a particular brand of pills because they had seen the advertising and had concluded that nothing else would do for them. It was all sapping her strength, and by lunchtime she was ready to crawl into a hole and disappear. Instead she had to pull herself together, deal with the latest emergency coming in, make quick decisions and direct her staff where they were needed. Just when she got her breath back, the intern turned to her and asked:  
“What about the guy in 4? He’s been waiting for three hours.”  
Three hours! The guy was going to be livid. But she was free for a few moments, and there was no one else available, so she would have to take it. She prepared herself for the onslaught and pushed back the curtain of cubicle number 4.  
She was surprised when, instead of a torrent of angry words, she was greeted with a smile and a little wave. She took her patient in with a quick glance. Middle-aged, well dressed, although at the moment his vest was unbuttoned and his sleeves turned up. The file gave his name as Harold Wren.  
“Rather busy today,” he said. “I was hoping to avoid this…”  
Good grief! A patient who apologized for taking up her time! What planet had he come from?  
As if to emphasize the point, her pager went off. She looked at it – nothing she would have to deal with immediately. She put it back into her pocket and turned back to her patient.  
“Sorry about the wait. I’m Dr Tillman.”  
“How do you do?” he replied politely.  
She took another look at his file.  
“I see that you’ve been experiencing some back pain.”  
From the stiff way he sat, and the minimal movements he made, not to mention the suppressed pain she could hear in his voice, that was probably some understatement. But if that was the complaint he had come in with, he clearly didn’t want to make a fuss.  
“My doctor’s playing golf in the Caymans,” he explained now with another wry smile. “I just need a refill on my pain medication.”  
That was understandable, however she couldn’t just give him the medication without examining him first. At least a few questions were in order.  
“On a scale of one to five, how bad’s your pain?” she asked.  
“On a good day, three. Today’s not a good day…”  
Well, that sounded a bit different than “some back pain”. She held her hands out to him:  
“Squeeze my hands.”  
He complied. His muscle tone was good, he was obviously getting some form of exercise. But the pain was sapping his strength and inhibiting his movements.  
“Alright,” she said and let go of his hands.  
There were two x-rays in the file, which she now put up on the lightbox. No wonder he was in pain, she thought. The vertebrae in his neck were held together with pins and screws. He must have suffered some severe injuries, and not that long ago either. To confirm this she asked:  
“Well, judging from your bone grafts, it looks like you had spinal fusion surgery about a year or two ago?”  
“Yeah.”  
The monosyllabic answer, and the matter of fact tone in which it was given, told her something more about this patient. It was what it was, he implied. He had adjusted to his injuries, accepted his new reality and got on with his life.  
Normally it wasn’t very helpful when a patient was not forthcoming with any information, but she found the interaction with Mr Wren strangely refreshing. She had listened to so much whining today already, so much aggression, so much aggrieved entitlement, that having a patient who didn’t want to give her his whole history, who knew his body and how to deal with its problems, made such a nice change. Still, she wasn’t going to dismiss him in a hurry. Maybe there were other ways she could help him.  
“You know, if your pain’s chronic, there are other treatments.”  
He just nodded, somewhat dismissively. Obviously something he didn’t want to discuss either. She wondered if he had tried some other treatment, massage or physiotherapy, and it hadn’t worked. There were possible surgical adjustments to reduce the pain, but she couldn’t really blame him if he didn’t want any more surgery. She looked at the file again. There should have been more x-rays, she thought. According to this his spinal injuries were not confined to the neck, but there was nothing to indicate what had happened to him.  
“How were you injured?” she asked.  
That little smile again.  
“It’s a long story,” he said dismissively, before another wave of pain hit him that almost made him gasp.  
“Please, I was hoping you might be able to just give me a prescription…”  
She hesitated. As a new patient, he should undergo a thorough examination before she could prescribe anything.  
“You really should have a full work-up – CT, MRI…” she told him. Then she reconsidered. This was the calmest, most sensible patient she had seen in a while. It was unlikely that he was trying to score some pills to feed an addiction. His need was plain to see, even without the work-up. He knew his body and his injuries, he knew what he needed, and he had a regular doctor who unfortunately happened to be out of reach. Besides, she felt oddly grateful to this man. She hadn’t felt this good all day. It was as if his quiet, friendly manner had created an eye inside the storm, where she could find a brief moment of respite. So she continued:  
“But you are the most polite patient I’ve seen all week. So I will make an exception.”  
She quickly filled in the script and handed him the piece of paper. She wasn’t going to give him carte blanche, though:  
“Okay,” she said, “this is for three days. If you’re still in pain, you have to come back.”  
He seemed relieved when he took the paper.  
“Thank you, Dr Tillman, I have everything I need.”  
Her pager beeped, breaking the spell of calm she had been under for the past ten minutes. She looked at it. This was something she couldn’t ignore.  
“Duty calls. Take care,” she said. She just heard him say “Thanks” before she exited the cubicle and dived into the maelstrom outside. The chaos enveloped her immediately. Another emergency had come in, a gunshot victim this time, and she had to make the right decisions very quickly and direct everyone where they were supposed to be. But those few minutes with the last patient had somehow recharged her batteries. She didn’t feel drained like before, when she was barely holding on, but now she was back on top of things, doing what she did best and enjoying it. Suddenly it felt like one of the good days again. Down the hall, she spotted Mr Wren coming out of the cubicle and limping carefully towards the exit. A voice behind her suddenly said:  
“So, did he rip your head off for making him wait so long?”  
She turned and saw the intern looming over her.  
“No,” she replied, “he was a total sweetie. I wish they were all like that.”  
Her pager beeped again, summoning her to the nurses’ station. She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders, ready for everything else this day might throw at her.


End file.
